General Information
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player PC/XBOX 360/Playstation 3 RPG Game Released in 2006, developed by Bethesda..

The Elder Scrolls IV (better known as simply "Oblivion") is the fourth installment in the Elder Scrolls series. The game takes place in the Providence of Cyrodil, where your character is thrust into an engaging plotline involving the assassination of Uriel Septim VII, strange cults and some trademark Daedra fun. The game is considered an open-ended RPG, with vast snowy mountain landscapes, plush tropical forests, and dense meadowlands to explore. The game involves a total of five main factions which you can join at any time. There game is also riddled with side-quests, just begging to be completed.

Oblivion implements some new features in the Gamebryo engine never-before-seen in any of the previous Elder Scrolls such as HDR lighting, Radiant AI, and full use of the Havok physics engine. The in-game graphics are superb. The towns have a sense of old medieval to them, the wildlife is fantastic, the trees, plants, and foliage sway with the breeze, and the sunsets are absolutely spectacular.

Oblivion has 9 official mods: Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles make up the larger mods, adding 10 and 30 hours of gameplay, respectively. The other mods are small addons called Downloadable Content (DLC for short) and includes a new house for wizards (Frostcraig), a new hide-out for thieves (Thieve's Den), an exclusive cavern for evil players (Vile Lair), a new way of obtaining magic (Spell Tomes), a new mini-quest to complete (Orrery), another mini-quest which yields a weapon as a prize (Mehrunes Razor), and horse armor.

Storyline
You begin, much like in previous Elder Scrolls, inside of a prison cell. While serving your time, you receive a surprise visit from the Emperor himself and his royal bodyguards. They need access to a secret passageway which goes through your cell. As the make their escape, the King recognizes you from recent dreams, and requests your presence along the escape route. It isn't long until the party is ambushed by Cult Assassins and the Emperor is slain. Before he dies, the Emperor gives you the Amulet of Kings to deliver to Jauffre, the headmaster of a secret organization called "The Blades". The Blades are sworn to protect the Emperor and the throne. While Emperor Septim the VII and his sons are brutally slain, we become aware that the King had an illegitimate son.

Your role in the main quest is never the main hero. Instead, you play a facilitator for the surviving son of Uriel Septim to rise to the challenge and fulfill his destiny.

Modding
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of different modifications for Oblivion. The game comes with a Construction Set tool, which you can use at any time to make whatever your heart's desire. The modding community is very large, and so there is a large variety of content.

There are also popular "overhaul" packages, which change almost every facet of the game. Most of the time these massive Overhauls add a large amount of content to the game, such as monsters and armor, and generally make the game more challenging, although they are usually configurable to your specifications.

Shivering Isles is the first expansion pack for Oblivion. It was released on March 27, 2007 for both PC and Xbox 360. Like all of Oblivion the difficulty scales depending on your level, ensuring that no matter your level you will be able to use the new content.

In this expansion pack you are called to a strange portal near the city of Bravil that has mysteriously appeared. It turns out the portal has been created by the Daedric god Sheogorath who is seeking a mortal champion to help defend the realm of madness (also known as the Shivering Isles) against an invasion by the Knights of Order and their god, Jyggalag.

This expansion adds the entire Shivering Isles for you to explore, complete with dozens of towns, ruins, outlaw camps, underground hives, and the capital of the Shivering Isles, New Sheoth. In your travels you will also come across many unique locations, such as Suicide Hill, Pinnacle Rock, and the Gates of Madness . It also adds 30+ new quests, 200 new weapons, 80 new pieces of clothing and armor, and many new ingredients for alchemists. In total all the new content takes about 30-40 hours to go through.

Since its release Bethesda has released two patches for Shivering Isles, fixing the major bugs that have appeared. The modding community attached to Oblivion has also taken an interest in Shivering Isles, making numerous mods for it that do everything from fix the little bugs Bethesda missed, to adding new houses that the player can buy.